Why do dreams take us back to childhood?

Have you ever woken up feeling like you’ve just been somewhere else? Not just a vague, fading dream—but a place you recognize. A place that feels like it belongs to you, even if you can’t fully explain why, it is just vividly captured.

Yesterday’s nap, I flew back to my childhood. Short, only ~1.5 hours, yet heartwarming.

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I was walking along a narrow sidewalk for pedestrians, the kind that forces you to turn your shoulders slightly just to pass through. It was crowded—too crowded. People sat on low stools, eating from small tables set up beside pickup trucks turned into makeshift food stalls. The air felt busy, noisy, alive.

I kept bumping into people as I walked. There was barely any space to move. It should have been uncomfortable, even irritating for my current version risking the panic attack—but it wasn’t. It felt familiar, nostalgic, and old comfort. Like waiting after school, buying cheap street food and snacks sold near the entrance gate of the school, watching the sky darken almost raining while hoping your ride would arrive soon. Like standing in the rain without really minding it. Like being small in a world that didn’t demand too much from you yet.

I didn’t realize it in the dream. Only later did I understand—I wasn’t just walking through a crowded street. I was walking through one of my core memories.

And then, without warning, it changed. I was somewhere colder now. A highland, wrapped in mist of mountainous suburbs. There was a pool of warm water, steam rising into the air, blurring the edges of everything. It looked like a waterboom park as well, but quieter, softer—almost suspended in time.

And somehow, nearby, there was a dock. Beyond it, the sea. Boats drifting, waiting. People moving in between dock and waterpark worlds—changing clothes, rinsing off, preparing to step into something new. I walked along the path with my dad. Simplicity, no urgency. Strolling around. Just walking, enjoying our time with a normal father-daughter conversation.

There were large floating rings in the waterboom—meant for groups, for laughter, for shared moments. The kind of thing you don’t think twice about as a child. The kind of thing that, somehow, becomes distant as you grow older. Again, I didn’t question it then. But now I see it clearly—This place didn’t exist. Not exactly. It was a blend of somewhere I’ve been, and something I’ve felt.

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When I woke up, most parts of it were already slipping away. Details blurred immediately. Sequences didn’t quite make sense. But the fulfilled feeling stayed. And that’s when it hit me: maybe dreams aren’t about remembering things as they were. Maybe they’re about remembering how they actually felt. Joyful, sadness, anger, envy, grief, love, peace.

Scientifically, this isn’t surprising, at least for me as I studied biology in my bachelor and master. Though I didn’t learn it firsthand about neuroscience, I sometimes watch documentary movies and am always amazed how magnificent it is.

Our brains don’t store memories like perfect recordings. They’re fragments—images, sensations, emotions, scattered across different parts of the mind. Amygdala (emotions), hippocampus (memory), visual cortex (imagery), and the posterior cortical hot zone (hallucinatory visual nature). During sleep, especially in the dreaming phase (REM or rapid eye movement stage), the brain starts to reorganize them. It selects, reshapes, reconnects. It edits and remixes.

And sometimes, what it creates isn’t an exact replay of the past—but a reconstruction of it. Softer in some places, sharper in others. Not entirely accurate, some artificial and weird, but emotionally precise. That’s why a place or a moment in a dream can feel so real, even if it never truly existed. Because, in a way, it did.

Based on my experience, two or more dreams might feel like disconnected or completely different situations jump from one to another, like an old film roll displaying different videos. Actually, it is normal. Our brain ‘montage’ the memory and emotions, especially if the sleep phase changes, or if we are almost awake, or if the brain switches to different topics of emotions. In my case, I was almost awake due to the olfactory stimulus—it came from the floor mopping liquid my dad used in real time, the fragrance was just too strong LOL but then I continued to sleep—that might have cut the dreaming phase. I combined the real presence of my dad into my dreamscape, a sign of security he gives as my caretaker. Also the fragrant sensation brings something similar to the coastal freshness.

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What I find most interesting is not what moment my brain chose to show me—but which parts of emotions it chose to keep.

Not the big events. Not the milestones. But the small, mundane things: waiting without worry, walking in a crowd with peace, eating and talking not in a hurry or high tensions, being present with loved ones. Moments that once felt ordinary and grounding. Moments that, somehow, became important only after they were more difficult to recreate as we grow older.

So maybe psychologically speaking, a dream is a core memory reconstruction process. The brain works beyond just memorizing but rebuilding past experiences with pieces of puzzle from the left emotions and reminiscence in our life. Unconsciously calming down ourselves with an old steady anchor. Spontaneously makes us float gracefully in a sea of memory.

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Years before, I once found myself wondering why I wake up feeling more refreshed in sleep when I dream—compared to sleep that feels blank, like nothing happened at all. At first, it seems counterintuitive. Wouldn’t a “dreamless” sleep be deeper, more restful, higher quality, as proclaimed in many research publications?

From my observation in a physiological standpoint, that’s actually true. The most restorative stage of sleep is known as deep NREM (slow-wave sleep)—where the body does most of its physical recovery. Muscles relax, restore energy, and detoxification. This stage dream less occurs.

But then, there’s the other side of the experience. The nights when we dream. During REM sleep (the phase most associated with vivid dreaming)—the brain becomes highly more active. Not in a chaotic way, but in a deeply engaged one. Emotional processing, memory integration, even creativity—all of it is happening beneath the surface. It’s also why dream-filled sleep tends to be easier to recall—because the brain was actively working, not idling. Just like snorkeling near the water surface, not diving deeper into a twilight zone.

And maybe that’s why those dream-filled sleeps feel different for me. Not just restful, but complete. When I wake up, it’s like I’ve experienced something as if I had finished binge watching a series. There’s a lingering sense of movement, sparkling narrative that carries motivation and enlightenment into waking life.

Of course, this feeling is still subjective. But it aligns with what neuroscience suggests: during sleep, especially in REM phases, the brain undergoes a process called “memory consolidation” — organizing, reshaping, and integrating fragments of our experiences. In a way, dreaming might be less about escaping reality, and more about quietly reorganizing it.

Then why do I always think it feels more rewarding to have a dream? This is a scientific phenomenon called “REM Rebound”. If you’ve been skipping on sleep or dealing with a high-stress week, your brain might “collect on its debt” by aggressively increasing your portion of REM sleep the moment you finally rest.

This explains why nostalgic dreams feel so incredibly lifelike. Even though the brain is technically working overtime to process these memories, waking up from a pleasant dream triggers a dopamine release (neurotransmitter that gives a happy feeling). This creates a fascinating paradox: while the “mental processor” was running at 100% all night (physically draining), I could wake up with a refreshed feeling and emotionally recharged.

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As someone who likes to write down my dream details as soon as I wake up, I’ve also wondered: what if dreams could be recorded? Not just remembered imperfectly with notes, but moved imagery captured—like a video you could replay.

It feels like something that could be incredibly meaningful. Imagine being able to preserve memories in a more emotional, immersive way—especially for people living with conditions like Alzheimer’s or dementia. A way to hold onto moments, or even revisit the feeling of being with someone you love, crossing different generations.

Right now, though, that idea still remains out of reach. But as far as I know, there have been fascinating developments in neuroscience, particularly using tools like functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) scanner, Electroencephalography (EEG) sensor, and AI model for dream recorder. These technologies allow researchers to observe brain activity and in some cases, make rough predictions about the visual content of dreams.

They’ve managed to reconstruct basic shapes, movements, even fragments of imagery. But it’s still far from precise because it needs to be calibrated personally. So we’re not yet at a point where dreams can be recorded and replayed as a coherent “film.”

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For now, dreams remain something fragile in a digital human civilization. Something that exists fully only in the moment we experience it—and then slowly dissolves, leaving behind just enough feeling to make us wonder what it all meant.

Maybe that’s part of their purpose. Not to be stored perfectly, not to be replayed with precision, but to be felt, processed, and, sometimes, remembered just enough.

Maybe that’s what dreams are for. Not just random images. Not just noise or smell. But a quiet process of sorting through a life—keeping what matters, letting go of what doesn’t, and, every once in a while, bringing you back to a version of yourself you didn’t realize you missed.

In my native language, Indonesian, “dream” translates into “mimpi”—or its poetic idiom, “bunga tidur”, literally meaning “flower of sleep”. And maybe that’s exactly what it is. Something brief, delicate, and doesn’t last forever—but leaves behind a trace of meaning long after it’s gone.

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Do you remember what’s the most memorable dream you’ve ever had? Please write down in the comment!☺

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Thank you for reading ‘till the end, I’m wishing you have a nice day!!

Ciao~